03 / SERVICE + CONVERSION
01 / THE PROBLEM
Students had the information. The problem was making sense of it.
Students needed to understand what they had completed, what classes counted toward their degree, how courses connected, and what they should take next. When that information was hard to gather, students who were able to assemble plans themselves often left gaps in their plans.
The system was simply displaying information, than the student was left interpenetrating the system’s work.
1
Understand requirements
2
Check progress
3
Compare options
4
Build a plan
Every step depended on the student correctly interpreting the step before it.
THE DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we reduce the amount of interpretation required to understand degree progress and decide what to do next?
The goal wasn’t to add more academic information. It was to improve how existing information was prioritized, connected, and acted upon.
SCAD DEGREE PLANNER · PRODUCT DESIGN CASE STUDY
Making degree planning easier to understand and easier to act on.
SCAD students had the information they needed, but understanding progress, requirements, and next steps still required too much interpretation. We redesigned the planner to make those decisions clearer.
PRODUCT DESIGN
UX RESEARCH
SYSTEMS THINKING
Team project · SCAD · UX Design
PROJECT SNAPSHOT
MY ROLE
Product & UX Designer
TEAM
Collaborative student
design team
METHODS
Survey · Interviews · Diary Studies · Prototyping · Usability Testing
OUTCOME
Prototype presented
to SCAD officials
02 / RESEARCH
I looked for the moments where planning broke down not just the screens students disliked.
Used:Surveys · Interviews · Diary Studies · Competitive Analysis · Usability Testing
A 32-person across surveys, interviews, diary studies, competitive analysis, and usability testing helped us identify where students were losing clarity and what the redesign needed to prioritize.
Progress was hard to judge
65% rated their understanding of degree progress at 3/5 or lower.
Design response: Bring overall and major-level academic progress to the forefront, giving students the clarity and context needed to make confident, informed planning decisions.
Navigation added friction
43% rated navigation difficulty 4–5/5.
Design response: simplify hierarchy, clarify status, and reduce the amount of interpretation of where you are in your degree required to move through the planner.
The planner wasn’t easy to discover
74% discovered the planner through an advisor or MySCAD rather than finding it intuitively themselves.
Design response: create clearer entry points and stronger orientation once students arrive.
WHAT THE RESEARCH CHANGED
The findings pointed to one core opportunity: reduce the amount of interpretation students had to do themselves. Progress needed to be more visible, status more understandable, and the path forward easier to identify.
03 / DESIGN DIRECTION
The planner needed to support decisions, not simply display academic information.
01
Make progress obvious
02
Reduce interpretation
03
Make the next action clear
04 / EARLY DESIGN
Two directions helped us decide what the planner actually needed to prioritize.
OPTION A / Information-first
Prioritized a clear, structured presentation of registration details and weekly schedules, allowing students to easily review their academic information and navigate the planning process.
OPTION B / Decision-first
Explored a more guided experience that surfaced progress, registration status, and recommended next steps to support student planning decisions.
Two distinct directions helped us test what the planner should prioritize before committing to the final structure.
We moved forward with the decision-first direction because it reduced the amount of interpretation required from the student.
05 / TESTING & ITERATION
We tested whether the hierarchy actually made planning easier to understand.
Whether students could understand progress, identify course status, and determine what they needed to do next.
BEFORE TESTING
The design improved organization, but students still had to interpret too much of the information themselves.
AFTER TESTING
We strengthened progress cues, clarified status, and moved secondary details behind more deliberate interactions.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Progress and status needed stronger visual priority, while detailed course information still had to remain accessible when students needed it.
06 / FINAL SOLUTION
The final direction makes planning feel less like decoding a system and more like moving through one.
The experience is organized around the questions a student is actually trying to answer: Where am I? What do I still need? What should I do next?
01
Progress at a glance
Understand degree status before making another decision.
02
Requirements with context
See requirements as part of a degree path rather than isolated course lists.
03
Clear next steps
Reduce uncertainty about what the student should do next.
PROTOTYPE DEMO
See the experience in motion.
A first look at our vision for a more intuitive academic planning experience. Presented to SCAD officials, this product showcase highlights the redesigned interface and our approach to making academic planning clearer, more accessible, and easier to navigate.
NEXT PROJECT
07 / OUTCOME & IMPACT
From classroom concept to real-world consideration.
REAL-WORLD IMPACT
SCAD later reviewed our team’s Degree Planner redesign while the school was working on its actual degree-planning experience.
PROPOSAL → LATER REDESIGN
Compare the experience we proposed with what SCAD later created.
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